Retired FOX 2 investigator Scott Lewis reflects on Detroit's last serial killer

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A serial killer on Detroit's east side - and this isn't the first time.

The cases are eerily similar. What's different now is the response from Detroit police. 

Three women have been found dead so far and police say the killer is preying on prostitutes, luring them into abandoned homes and killing them.

Investigators arrested a person of interest, DeAngelo Kenneth Martin earlier on Friday, three hours after naming him and asking the public for tips.

"They say targeting older women," said Angela Johnson.

FOX 2: "Does that scare you?"

"That scares the hell out of me," she said.

Angela Johnson is terrified and remembering the last time a serial killer stalked sex workers on the city's east side. She remembers because she knew him.

"He would never target me and I thank God - I would never have known that that was Shelley," she said.

A man named Shelly Brooks was the suspected serial killer. FOX 2 Investigative Reporter Scott Lewis was on the case from the very beginning in 2002 - and he sees eerie similarities.

"This is Deja vu, this guy, Shelley Brooks had the same M.O. as this current guy - the only difference I see, is this guy seems to be targeting older women," Lewis said.

Shelley Brooks' crimes were near Mack and Bewick in the early 2000s.

"This was the hot corner, over in that field, this where all the people hung out using drugs and the prostitutes," Lewis said.

On this day FOX 2 met up with Scott Lewis the first to alert police to a potential serial killer stalking sex workers on the east side.

"I got a tip from a prostitute who called me on a pay phone," he said. "When I talked to her, she convinced me there was a serial killer out there."

Police didn't listen but Scott stayed on the story interviewing sex workers, gathering evidence. As more prostitutes turned up dead, a taskforce was assigned to track down what they could no longer deny - a serial killer was terrorizing Detroit's east side.

"He would bludgeon them with whatever was handy, a rock, a brick, a board, a table leg," Lewis said. "He was a very brutal killer."

But one victim didn't die and her sketch of her attacker led to the arrest of Shelly Brooks.

"They convicted him I think of two murders," he said. "They suspected him of 12 and had pretty solid evidence on six or seven."

Now another serial killer - but all these years later police are taking these crimes much more seriously.

"I like the way police are being proactive on this one," 

Police are warning women here on the city's east side as they worry and wonder, who the killer is. Do they know him - like they knew Shelley Brooks?